The invention relates to a method for the production of a sub-miniature fuse, in which after fixing the distance between the two connecting electrodes, a fuse wire is electrically conductively fixed therebetween and subsequently an initially two-part casing surrounding the electrodes and the fuse wire is closed. The invention also relates to a sub-miniature fuse comprising a casing formed from two halves with the electrodes contained therein, connecting wire or lead ends being located on one side thereof, and a fuse wire fixed to the other side.
The heretofore known sub-miniature fuses, which are also called pico fuses, can be looked upon as a miniaturized version of a fuse of normal size of, e.g., length 20 mm. They comprise, e.g., a small ceramic tube, to which caps are adhered at either side and to which are in turn soldered the fuse wire located within the small ceramic tube, together with the connecting leads. A fuse of this type, which is approximately only 7 mm long and approximately 2.4 mm thick is still largely produced manually, so that the production costs are comparatively high. The reason for the mainly manual manufacture is the difficulty of handling the fuse wire, which in extreme cases has a diameter of only 8 .mu.m.
In order to counteract these problems, attempts have already been made to subdivide the interior of a prismatic casing into three chambers and to reserve the two outer chambers for joining the fuse wire to the connecting leads, while the inner chamber is reserved for the fuse wire. In view of the small size of the components, this proposal is difficult to put into practice and it is also necessary to diverge from the heretofore conventional rotationally symmetrical construction.